Albus Dumbledore personality type: INFJ

Albus Dumbledore tells Harry that when he looks into the Mirror of Erised, he sees himself holding a pair of thick woollen socks. Years later you learn what he most likely saw: his family, whole again. That small lie tells you plenty about the man. He is warm, funny and kind, and he is always holding something back.

Why does a man like that hide so much? Conscience, mostly. Dumbledore is a One with a Two wing. As a young man he and Grindelwald dreamed of wizards ruling Muggles for the greater good. Then his sister Ariana died during a three-way duel between Albus, Aberforth and Grindelwald, and he never learned whose spell killed her. The rest of his life reads like penance. He turns down the post of Minister for Magic because he does not trust himself with power, and he never quite forgives himself for anything.

He reads as an INFJ. The lead function, introverted intuition, is the part of him that sees where events are heading years in advance. Riddle’s diary in Harry’s second year confirms a suspicion about Horcruxes, and he spends the following years quietly collecting memories to prove it. He sets up Snape’s role, the sword, the Snitch and the Deluminator long before anyone knows they will matter. Extraverted feeling is how he works that plan through people. He knows what to say to a frightened student, a proud teacher or a nervous Minister, and most visitors leave his office calmer than they arrived.

The INFJ weak spot is the pull of the physical world, the sudden grab at something tempting. For a man who plans everything, Dumbledore makes one disastrous impulsive move. He finds the Gaunt ring, recognizes the Resurrection Stone set in it, and puts it on, hoping to see his family. The curse inside starts killing him, and he has about a year left.

What we watch on the page is the cost of all that. He keeps Harry at arm’s length in fifth year, then admits he cared too much to tell him the truth sooner. In King’s Cross, the Dumbledore Harry meets is finally honest, sorry and human.

ENFP and ENTP both get plenty of votes, and his whimsy and love of sherbet lemons make that understandable. I still land on INFJ. Under the eccentric surface sits a closed, single-minded strategist.